hey MROSTOV if you enjoy long range rimfires then you should pick up a .17 mach2 it is one of the most impressive rimfire cartridges I have seen in a long time, and it doesnt cost any more than 22 mag to shoot. i think i wrote this further down the thread, but me and my father both have one I have a ruger, and he has a kimber, we had an egg shotting contest at over 300 yards, he got his egg on the first shot and i got mine on the second! wind blowing and everything!
What I want to get is a .17HMR. I have fired the .17HMR and for such a tiny cartridge it's impressive. It's terminal performance is petty good and it's flat shooting. It'll definitely put a hole in a STOP sign at 175 yards. A .22LR won't do that. The TNT hollowpoints give better penetration than the V-Max varmint bullets.
I haven't tried the .17M2 yet. The .17 Aguila really caught my attention when it came out. I did see a test someone did recently where they fired some of the Aguila ammo out of a .17M2 barrel. The reverse doesn't work since the .17M2 has a lot more shoulder to it.
Unfortunately Ruger took the 10/22mag out of production. Word is that they are tinkering with the design to make it more friendly to the .17HMR round. Evidently, the demand for the 10/22mag in .17 HMR really spiked sales of the rifle, as a great number of the .22mag rifles that were sold quickly underwent a barrel change.
My next rifle will probably be a Ruger 77/22 mag and I'll pick up a .17HMR barrel for it. Or, I'll pick up a .17HMR rifle and get a .22mag barrel for it.
My understanding of the Ruger 77/22 is that the .22LR and the .22mag both use the same receiver. To change them over you replace the rear housing that contains the trigger guard and the rear of the mag well, and the barrel. All of which you can do at home with simple hand tools (screwdriver and an allen wrench). This gives you the capability of shooting 4 calibers (.22LR, .17M2, .22mag, .17HMR) out of one rifle.
The 77/22 is really an over-built little rifle. Typical of Ruger weapons it borrows a lot from other designs. In the case of the 77/22, though it looks externally like a Mauser design, on closer examination it seems to have some serious influences from the old .303 Enfield in the design of the bolt and the receiver.
Over time I have heard some people comment on accuracy issues using some of the Ruger 77/22 rifles, especially from the rifles made a few years ago, but once you get an aftermarket barrel, accuracy issues tend to evaporate.
One thing that the .17HMR has done is put a wave of interest in taking rimfires more seriously in the US. The fallout form this is being felt in some very good .22mag (.22WMR) ammo being made now, plus the possible resurrection of the 1970's era 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum.
Due to a demand on the US market to feed old rifles, Aguila is now making 5mm Mag ammo under the Centurion brand. Hear tell the .204" caliber bullets deliver extremely good ballistics. With the success of the .204 Ruger (essentially a necked down .222 Remington Mag), there are some very good Hornady V-Max bullets made in .204". If the interest is there, we might see some good things happening with that once obsolete cartridge.
Unlike the .22LR, the .22mag uses .224" bullets of the same diameter as .22 centerfires, and the newer loads with the Hornady V-Max bullets have really breathed fresh life into that round. I'd like to try the 'coyote killer' loads made by OSSI that pushes a 35gr molycoated V-Max bullet out at about 2260fps.
